


The Tree

by elementalv



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Far Future Fic, Future Fic, Gen, Horror, M/M, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Unreliable Narrator, legend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elementalv/pseuds/elementalv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first day of summer marks the first day of Talia’s freedom for three glorious months. Most days, she runs wild, and hair that was tightly braided at dawn is hanging loose and wispy around her face by midmorning. She climbs trees without a second thought and is still small enough to scramble through briars without scratching herself up too much. (And even if she does, it’s not like the scratches last much longer than a thought.)</p><p>Mom knows better than to try to slow her down unless it’s needful, and the first full moon of summer counts. Come four o’clock, she’ll be outside howling for Talia to come in, but today, Talia doesn’t need the reminder. She’s heading toward the house at a dead run and can see her mom on the back porch already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Actual warnings are in the end notes.

The first day of summer marks the first day of Talia’s freedom for three glorious months. Most days, she runs wild, and hair that was tightly braided at dawn is hanging loose and wispy around her face by midmorning. She climbs trees without a second thought and is still small enough to scramble through briars without scratching herself up too much. (And even if she does, it’s not like the scratches last much longer than a thought.)

Mom knows better than to try to slow her down unless it’s needful, and the first full moon of summer counts. Come four o’clock, she’ll be outside howling for Talia to come in, but today, Talia doesn’t need the reminder. She’s heading toward the house at a dead run and can see her mom on the back porch already.

“Mom! Mom, you’ll never —“

Mom isn’t listening to Talia. She’s too busy pushing Talia behind her and scanning the woods, listening for whatever it was that chased her in.  Talia keeps trying to talk, but —

“Hush!” Mom says, her voice sharp and full of rebuke.

Talia bites her lips to keep silent. There’s nothing after her, but it’s no use saying that to her mother, not until she’s satisfied that nothing and no one else is in the woods.

A few seconds more, and then, “Why in the world were you running so hard?”

“I tried to tell you! It’s the tree. It has buds — two on the right, two on the left.”

Mom blinks at her. “What? What are you talking about? We don’t have any flowering trees around here.”

“ _The_ _Tree_ , Mom! You know — back at the old ’stead.”

It’s another moment before Mom makes the connection, and even as she goes pale, she grabs Talia by the arm and marches her straight back to the hose, shredding her clothing as they go.

Talia, twelve years old and not at all shy, objects strongly to the loss of her favorite shirt and even more strongly when her mother turns the hose on her. Her protests turn to shrieks of outrage as her mother continues to hose her down, and it’s only when the stench of fear hits her nose that Talia realizes just how much trouble she might be in.

Five minutes later, her skin pale and cold, Talia is finally free of the ice cold shower and is shivering in the late afternoon light. The sun has just crested the treetops, so there isn’t as much warmth as she’d like, but Talia is nothing if not resilient, and she soon shivers herself back to warmth.

Mom — no. Not Mom. _Laura_ , with her red, red eyes, is looking straight at Talia and says, “Did it spit anything on you? No, don’t answer right off the bat. I want you to think long and hard before you answer.”

Talia heeds the warning in Laura’s voice and casts her mind back to when she saw The Tree. She’d followed a lazy dragonfly up from the stream and hadn’t realized how close she was to the old ’stead and The Tree until she was practically on top of them. The sun was still high enough to shine down into the clearing, and the air was filled with — with —

“Gnats,” she says decisively. “There were only gnats and that dragonfly I followed, The tree didn’t do anything.”

Laura — no, _Mom_ — sags in relief. The red is gone, and her eyes are their usual light brown. “Good. Good.”

She straightens up and then frowns. “What were you doing all the way over there? You know perfectly well that’s out of bounds.”

This is the sort of trouble Talia is more used to, and she’s grateful for the normalcy of it. As Mom shepherds her into the house and straight to the laundry room so she can get dressed again, Talia tells her all about her day and explains about the dragonfly and how she just had to follow it, because what else was she going to do?

Mom hardly seems to listen, though, and at the end, she holds Talia’s face in her hands and looks deeply into her eyes before leaning in to take her scent. Eventually, she seems satisfied, if not exactly calm, and says, “Go up to your room until supper.”

Ordinarily, she would argue, but Talia is learning patience and control — both of which she’ll need when she takes over for her mother some day in the far future — and she nods her acceptance before skipping up the stairs to her room to read. A few minutes later, she hears her mother come up, but she doesn’t stop at Talia’s room. Instead, she keeps heading up to where Grandma Erica sleeps all day.

As tempted as she is to listen in, Talia decides not to and focuses on the book in her hand. She feels like she failed somehow in ending up at the old ’stead earlier, and she thinks that maybe behaving her best now will perhaps make up for it.

Five minutes later, she’s lost in Middle Earth and has, for the moment, forgotten about The Tree.

~*~*~

Dinner is subdued. Her dad and brothers must have gotten the story from Mom, because as soon as Talia walks back into the kitchen, all four of them crowd around her, checking to see that she’s all right. It’s enough to scare her even more than Mom had when she’d gone all red-eyed, and Talia, who never gets upset, is about to burst into tears.

“Enough,” Mom says, her voice taking on a hint of authority. “I already told you she’s fine, and you’re doing nothing but upsetting her. And on a full moon night, yet! There isn’t a one of you that has the common sense God gave a stiles. Those of you that haven’t yet, get washed up. The rest can sit down and wait.”

Toby, two years older than Talia, gets a tragic look on his face and asks, “Wait? Why?”

“Because Grandma Erica is eating with us tonight, and I won’t have her thinking I’ve raised a bunch of heathens. And Toby, I want you to tame that mop on your head by using a _brush_ , not your fingers, you hear? John, I swear, if you don’t take that boy to the barber shop tomorrow, I’m taking care of it myself with the hedge trimmer.”

Dad grunts his agreement, a half smile on his face, and then he leans down to kiss the top of Talia’s head. “I’m glad you’re safe, Princess, but you need to pay better attention to where you’re going from now on. You hear?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she says, slipping unintended into a younger habit of speech.

While everyone gets settled at the table, Mom comes back downstairs, carefully leading Grandma to the table. She says, “Talia, I want you to help Grandma tonight. You remember what to do?”

Talia sits up straight at the news. Helping Grandma is largely a grown-up job, and Talia had begun to think she’d never be old enough to be trusted with the responsibility. “Yes, Mom. I know.”

And she does — they all do, really. Meat is at six o’clock, potatoes at ten o’clock, and vegetables at two o’clock. Meat is the most important part, and it has to be cut just so, which is why kids aren’t left on their own with it. However, Mom nods at the extra knife, and Talia picks it up once Grandma is seated.

At first, it’s nerve-wracking, trying to cut the meat into even cubes, but then Talia’s endless practice sessions on her own meat kick in, and before too long, she’s finished with the plate. She puts down the cutting knife and says, “Your fork is just to the left of your right hand, and all the meat is cut.”

“What kind of potatoes?” Grandma’s voice is low and raspy, damaged from the same thing that blinded her twenty years earlier — a hunter with a sick sense of humor and a thoughtless grudge. The thought of it was enough to give Talia the shivers.

“They’re mashed and kind of stiff. You should be fine with the fork.” The thought of the hunter is still chasing around in her head, and in an effort to get rid of it, she says, “Grandma, what’s a stiles?”

“Don’t start conversations in the middle,” she answers. “It’s rude, and I have no idea why you’re asking.”

“A stiles,” Talia repeats. “Earlier, Mom said none of us had the common sense God gave a stiles, which I guess means that a stiles doesn’t have very much, but I don’t know what one is. I’ve looked in the dictionary, but that word doesn’t fit, and there’s nothing in the bestiary, so I wondered what a stiles was.”

Mom’s eyes are wide with tension, and Dad’s look like they’re filled with mirth, but Grandma is laughing hard enough to start coughing, so maybe Talia won’t get in trouble for asking.

“Christ,” she says, when she can breathe again. “I haven’t heard that in a donkey’s age. Laura, I didn’t think you even remembered it.”

“Neither did I,” Mom says. “But then someone went wandering around the old ’stead today, and that must have brought it to mind again.”

“Yes, someone did,” Grandma says, and it doesn’t matter that she’s long since passed the power on to Mom, because Grandma still sounds like the Alpha and it’s enough to make Talia and her brothers straighten right up. “Tell me, do you know why the old homestead is off limits?”

Talia doesn’t want to answer, but Grandma is staring almost straight at her, so it’s clear who’s supposed to say something. “Because so many people died there that it’s cursed,” she answers.

“Both of those things are true, but they aren’t the reason you aren’t allowed to wander there. The Tree is.”

“I don’t get it. It’s just an old tree. We have pictures of it all over the house,” Jackson says.

Most of the time, Talia doesn’t have any use for him, and he doesn’t have any use for her. At the age of twenty, he thinks he knows everything, and he resents the fact that Talia will take over from Mom. Talia resents it too, sometimes, but she knows Jackson would be a disaster, and she’s pretty sure he knows it just as well as she does. Right now, though, she’s happy that he asked, because it means she doesn’t have to.

Grandma sighs when she hears the question and says, “Clearly, you’ve neglected your family history studies.”

“He didn’t neglect them, Grandma,” says Mom. “He never learned that story.”

“Why not?” Grandma says, her voice little more than a growl.

The tension in the room ratchets up suddenly, with everyone but Mom and Grandma trying to back away from the table unnoticed.

“Because it scared the daylights out of me when I was a girl, and I didn’t want to do that to my own children,” Laura snaps, her eyes red. A moment later, she subsides and says, “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

Talia isn’t sure exactly why Mom apologized, but Grandma relaxes, and everything seems to be okay again.

“I’d forgotten about your nightmares, Laura,” Grandma says. “Talia, I can’t promise you won’t suffer the same, but given what you saw earlier, you need to know the story, and you have to learn it well enough to pass it down. Do you understand?”

Her dinner and her grandmother’s blindness forgotten, Talia bites her lip and nods. Then she says, “I promise,” when she realizes everyone is waiting.

“To answer your earlier question, a stiles is a _who_ , not a what. He was my godfather, in fact.”

Talia holds her breath, and a quick look at her brothers shows her that Jackson, David, and Toby are all as attentive as she is. Dad isn’t, because he’s looking at Mom, and she’s staring down at her plate.

“Uncle Stiles and my father — your three-greats grandfather, Talia — were best friends from childhood, and it was Uncle Stiles who introduced my father to Peter Hale, who turned him to save him from severe asthma attacks. You know what asthma is, right?”

“Ginny Masters has it,” Talia says. “I saw her have an attack one day, and it was scary. It looks like it hurts.”

“It does hurt, and it’s definitely scary,” Grandma says, “which is why Dad was always grateful to Uncle Stiles and Uncle Peter.”

“Even though Uncle Stiles didn’t have much common sense,” Talia says, not quite able to voice her real question.

“According to Uncle Derek, Uncle Stiles didn’t have a lick of common sense. According to Uncle Stiles and everyone else, Uncle Derek had even less.” Grandma pauses, a smile on her face. “They bickered constantly, even more than your mother and father did when they first met.”

“They were in love?” David is the most soft-spoken of them all, and Talia wonders why the question is so important to him.

“Very much so. Uncle Stiles always claimed it was love at first sight, and Uncle Derek always said, ‘More like ninety-first sight,’ and then they’d be off again. I can’t count the number of times Mom or Dad would cover my eyes and drag me away.”

“Why’d they cover your eyes?” Talia asked.

“God, you’re stupid,” Toby said.

“No, you’re stupid,” she answered, unsatisfied with her response. It’s totally weak and unworthy of her.

He opens his mouth again, but Mom says, “Enough, Toby. Talia, I’ll explain why tomorrow. Grandma, please continue.”

At that, she put her knife and fork down and sighed. “I need to talk about them more often. They were so happy together, and I always thought of them as an extra set of fathers. I loved them so much.”

Talia can see the tears gathering in Grandma’s eyes, and she reaches over to squeeze her hand, saying, “I’m sorry I made you sad.”

“You didn’t,” she says, her voice rougher than usual.

Mom starts talking when Grandma doesn’t. “It was the full moon day in June, just like today, when the _acaria_ appeared in the yard of the ’stead and started blooming.”

“A century ago,” Grandma adds. “I was just your age, Talia.”

“I should have been paying attention,” Mom says.

“You aren’t the only one, but there’s no reason to fret. It will be another month before it’s dangerous.”

Dad says, “ _Acaria_? I don’t recognize that word.”

“You wouldn’t,” Mom says. “It’s a rare plant, and it feeds on magic. Grandma Jenny was the one who told me the story, but she never told me why the _acaria_ appeared. Do you know, Grandma Erica?”

“It was Uncle Stiles. He was a spark and then some. There wasn’t a lot of free-flowing magic in those days, so he would have been a bright light for it.”

Mom nods. “Of course.”

“What happened?” Jackson, for all that he’s kind of a jerk, is just as fascinated as Talia is.

Grandma takes a deep breath before answering. “The _acaria_ was in bloom when it appeared, and it needed magic to produce a new seed. Neither Uncle Stiles nor Uncle Derek knew what it was, though I think Uncle Derek might have had an idea it was dangerous. At first, he wouldn’t let Uncle Stiles get close to it, and then the decision was taken out of his hands.”

“What happened?” Dad asks.

“Magic. Dad thought the _acaria_ started influencing Uncle Stiles through his dreams — it was the only thing he could think of to explain what happened.” Talia held her breath while she waited for Grandma to continue. “The next full moon, it struck. Uncle Derek, Dad, and the rest of the pack were out running, but Uncle Stiles was sleepwalking, and he walked straight to the _acaria_. Mom told me later that she was trying to get Uncle Stiles away from the _acaria_ and heard Uncle Derek howl the very moment Uncle Stiles touched the bloom.”

Grandma started crying again, and Mom said, “The pollen leached into Stiles’ bloodstream and affected him almost immediately. If Derek hadn’t been moving at full alpha speed, it’s likely Stiles would have died within the hour. As it was, he just barely made it in time to help.”

“Uncle Derek did what he could, but within a few days, it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to save Uncle Stiles,” Grandma said, her voice hitching. “Grandpa Chris tracked down a witch who knew what the _acaria_ was and told him Uncle Derek had two options. He could let go of Uncle Stiles and let the _acaria_ disappear again, or he could stay with Uncle Stiles and perhaps prevent it from ever reproducing again.”

“Derek chose to stay with Stiles,” Mom says in a low voice. “He held Stiles upright, and the two of them stood on top of the _acaria_ , keeping it preoccupied while the witch did a working to tie the pair of them to the _acaria_ and the _acaria_ to the earth.”

Grandma says, “It took three days for the binding to take hold, and for their skin to turn to bark and their hair to leaves.”

“The Tree,” Talia says, and she’s horrified.

“The Tree,” Mom says. “The Tree, which is now in bloom.”

“Two flowers on each side,” Talia says. “One set is bright red, and the other is colored like amber.”

Grandma nods. “Their eyes. Uncle Derek was alpha, and Uncle Stiles was —”

“— Beta,” Jackson says.

“Human, actually. His eyes were a lighter brown than your mother’s.”

“The blooms are their eyes?” Talia whispers. “They’re still alive?”

“The Tree has been alive for a century, child, and it will likely be alive for several more,” Grandma says, and for all that her voice is stern, her tone is kind.

Talia thinks this is the reason her mother had nightmares about The Tree.

She asks, “Are they still in there? Do they know?”

Mom answers, “The family used to bring in psychics every so often to check. After the first thirty years, no one could get anything out of them.”

“It’s time to bring one back,” Grandma says. “The blooms may mean they’re waking up.”

“And if they are? What happens then?”

~*~*~

No one answers Talia, but that night, when she goes to sleep, a tall man with dark hair and light brown eyes meets her in a dream and tells her how to kill The Tree before the next full moon.

**Author's Note:**

> I like a good sex pollen story as much as the next person, and I started to wonder why such a thing as sex pollen would even exist and what the plant's goals might be. This story was supposed to be an answer to that question, but while I got the sex pollen in there (without ever actually naming it), this wasn't the story I was looking for. Instead, it turned into more a legend kind of story, and I'm pretty okay with that.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Major character deaths off screen and directly implied, but it was a long, long time ago.


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